goblin.tools Is Great for Breaking Down Tasks — But Then What?

Short answer: goblin.tools is genuinely one of the best free tools for breaking an overwhelming task into steps — and it doesn't, by design, do the next part for you. Its Magic ToDo turns "clean the whole flat" into a tidy list in seconds, no login, no paywall. But a list of steps is not the same as doing those steps across an afternoon, let alone across a week. The gap you're feeling isn't goblin.tools failing; it's the difference between planning a task and carrying it through — two different executive functions, both of which ADHD makes harder. So keep using goblin.tools for the breakdown. Then add a follow-through layer for the doing. This piece is about that second half: how to get from a broken-down list to a task that's actually finished.

You can probably picture the scene because you've lived it. The task felt like a fog, so you fed it to goblin.tools, nudged the spiciness up, and got back a clean, almost satisfying list of small steps. For about ninety seconds it felt like progress. Then you closed the tab. The next day the task was still undone, the list was somewhere you'd have to go find, and the steps that looked so doable last night had quietly turned back into a wall. Nothing was wrong with the list. You just never crossed from reading it to doing it — and then the list itself slipped out of mind.

What goblin.tools does brilliantly

Let's be clear, because this matters: goblin.tools is excellent at the thing it sets out to do, and it's the front door I'd point most people to for breakdown. Built and maintained by Bram De Buyser, it's described in its own words as "a collection of small, simple, single-task tools, mostly designed to help neurodivergent people with tasks they find overwhelming or difficult." The website is "offered free and available to all" and, per the same About page, "will stay free without ads or paywalls." For an ADHD brain, no signup wall isn't a footnote — it's the feature. The friction of even trying is most of what stops you, and goblin.tools removes it.

The star is Magic ToDo, which the site calls "a standard todo list, with some special sauce": you type a task and it auto-generates the steps to accomplish it. The genuinely clever part is the 🌶 spiciness slider. As goblin.tools puts it, "the spicier, the more steps it will attempt to break it down into" — it's a hint about how hard or stressful you find the task. That maps neatly onto executive-function reality: on a low day you need smaller, more granular steps, and the slider literally tunes step size to how the task feels right now. Alongside Magic ToDo sit other single-purpose tools — the Estimator for rough time guesses, the Judge for reading the tone of a message, the Formalizer, and a few more — each doing one thing cleanly.

It's also honest about money. The website stays free; the mobile apps are, in the About page's words, "offered at a low price" on Android and iOS, to cover running costs. The iOS app, "Goblin Tools" by the developer Skyhook, is a one-time US$2.99 — not a subscription. There's an Android version from the same maker, listed under "Skyhook Belgium." (Two notes worth keeping straight: check the Android listing yourself for its current price and terms rather than trusting a number off a third-party site, since it varies by store and region; and there are unrelated apps with similar names and subscription pricing that are not the official goblin.tools — the official one is the free website and the low-cost Skyhook apps.)

The "after breakdown" gap

Here's the structural thing, and it's not a flaw in goblin.tools — it's just where any breakdown tool ends. goblin.tools produces a list. By its own description it's "a standard todo list, with some special sauce." What it doesn't claim to do — and we shouldn't pretend it does — is walk you through actually doing those steps over hours and days. The list is the output. The doing is left to you.

And the doing is exactly where ADHD bites again. The ADDA puts it plainly: "Even when they know what needs to be done, initiating or finishing the task can feel almost impossible." Knowing the steps and starting or finishing them are different functions, and both are affected. CHADD frames the whole arc the same way: executive-function impairments hit the ability to "begin, work on and complete tasks" — not just to plan them. A breakdown tool serves the planning step beautifully. The begin-work-complete part is a separate, also-impaired job. Which is why a perfect list can sit untouched. That's not you being broken; that's the gap the list was never built to close.

Concretely, once the breakdown exists, four things are still left open. Deciding which step to do, and when — against how much energy you actually have today. Crossing the activation energy to start the first one. Remembering the list even exists tomorrow, instead of it evaporating the moment you closed the tab. And getting back in after a stall without the whole thing curdling into shame. None of these are planning problems, so a planner can't solve them.

1. Put the list somewhere it survives the night. A list inside a closed browser tab has the object permanence of a goldfish. Move the steps into one place you'll actually reopen tomorrow — the doing happens later than the planning, so the steps have to outlive the moment you made them, or they don't exist.

2. Pick one step, and a when — honestly matched to energy. Don't schedule "the whole list for tomorrow." Choose the single next step and a realistic window for it. A demanding step belongs in a high-energy slot; on a low day, you want the smallest step in the gentlest window. This is the same logic the spiciness slider runs on, applied to your calendar instead of the breakdown.

3. Shrink the first step until starting is almost too small to refuse. If "step one" still triggers dread, it isn't small enough yet. "Open the file and type one ugly sentence" beats "write the section." The activation energy to cross from not-doing to doing drops when the entry point is tiny, and momentum does more of the rest than you'd think.

4. Plan your re-entry before you stall, not after. You will miss a step some days — that's data, not failure. Decide in advance that a missed step just moves to the next window, with no penalty and no story about what it means. The thing that keeps a broken-down task alive over a week is being able to come back to it without flinching.

I learned the difference the slow way. For a while I had a beautiful habit of breaking things down and a terrible habit of never returning to the breakdown. A house move was the one that finally taught me: I'd shredded the whole thing into neat little steps, felt briefly competent, and then watched the list quietly die in a tab while the boxes did not pack themselves. What changed wasn't a better list. It was moving the steps somewhere I'd see them again, putting exactly one of them in a specific afternoon, and letting myself off the hook the days I didn't manage it. The breakdown was never the problem. The breakdown was the easy part.

Where moinaki fits

Think of it as front door and hallway. goblin.tools is the better front door — it turns an overwhelming task into steps faster and more cleanly than anything we'd try to rebuild, and it's free and login-free. moinaki is the hallway: it helps you actually walk those steps over days. They complement each other. The honest workflow is — break it down in goblin.tools, then bring the steps into moinaki to do them.

In practice that follow-through layer is three things. A Pursuit holds the steps as an ongoing thread you return to, so a one-shot list survives past the moment you made it. An energy-aware calendar helps you decide which step, when — matched to how much you've got today, which is the one thing a static list can't do. And Lem, a mentor that remembers you, nudges the first small step and welcomes you back if you stall, treating a missed step as data rather than a verdict. To be honest about the boundary: moinaki doesn't finish tasks for you, and it doesn't replace goblin.tools. It lowers the friction on starting and returning; the work is still yours. The ramps above work with or without it.

When it's more than a tool gap

One honest line worth keeping: no app fixes ADHD — not goblin.tools, not moinaki. They're tools that lower friction, and that's a real, useful thing, but it's not treatment. If not being able to do tasks is seriously disrupting your work, relationships, or finances no matter which tools you reach for, that's worth talking through with a clinician. Apps like these are adjuncts that sit alongside proper support, not a substitute for it, and for some people the right diagnosis or treatment changes the baseline that any tactic works within. This article describes a common difficulty and some coping tools; it isn't medical advice or a diagnosis. If you want the underlying mechanism — why breaking tasks down helps in the first place — that's its own piece.

FAQ

Is goblin.tools free?

Yes. The website is free with no ads and no paywalls, and its About page says it will stay that way. The mobile apps are a separate, optional convenience at a low one-time price — the official iOS app, "Goblin Tools" by Skyhook, is US$2.99, a one-time purchase rather than a subscription. You never have to pay or log in to use the web version.

What is the spiciness slider in goblin.tools?

It's the row of chili peppers in Magic ToDo, and it tells the tool how hard or stressful the task feels to you. In goblin.tools' own words, "the spicier, the more steps it will attempt to break it down into." It's a hint, not an exact measure — turn it up on a task that overwhelms you and you'll get a more granular breakdown with smaller steps.

I broke the task down — why still can't I start?

Because breaking a task down and starting it are different executive functions, and both are affected by ADHD. As the ADDA puts it, "even when they know what needs to be done, initiating or finishing the task can feel almost impossible." A breakdown tool solves the planning step; it can't lower the activation energy of starting or carry you through finishing. That part needs different moves — a tiny first step, a state change, scheduling against energy.

What's the best way to actually do the steps, not just list them?

Move the list somewhere it survives the night, pick one step and a realistic time for it matched to your energy, shrink that first step until starting is almost too small to refuse, and plan your re-entry so a missed day just rolls forward without shame. That's the follow-through layer a static list doesn't provide — and it's where a Pursuit, an energy-aware calendar, and a mentor that remembers you go beyond a breakdown.

Is goblin.tools a treatment for ADHD?

No. goblin.tools is a task tool, not medical treatment — it's designed to help with tasks people find overwhelming, which is a real and useful thing, but it doesn't treat ADHD. The same goes for moinaki. If you need a diagnosis or treatment, that's a conversation for a clinician. Tools like these can lower friction alongside proper support; they don't replace it.